Friday, October 9, 2009

Another major curve in the road.

2009 is definitely the worst of our lives in the 35+ years we've been married and frankly it has been the worst year of my own life. It has been a year of loss and sorrow, a year of grief and letting go. Ironically, no one we love has physically died, but sometimes there are "deaths" that are more bitter and heartbreaking than a physical one.

And yet....I have come to believe that in this year, our marriage has become stronger than it has ever been and that is a great blessing. My faith in my Lord Jesus has never been as real and tangible as it is today and that is the pearl of great price. These are good things, sweet evidences of God's grace in our lives, which we will need in even greater abundance in the coming weeks and months as we face a life that we had never contemplated in our wildest dreams.

We just purchased our new home, a used 34 foot Seahawk 5th wheel RV. We are still both unemployed in spite of the job postings we've been answering for the past several months. Unemployment has been just paying the bills, but at the end of the year our lease is up and my benefits run out and we will be left with just Ace's benefits. Not enough to cover our rent and utilities, much less food, medicine and some kind of health insurance when our subsidized COBRA runs out.....also at the end of the year. The Lord does provide, but it is usually not the way in which we want Him to provide it or on our timing.

A few months ago I discovered that I had a very small retirement account from a previous employer, the old-fashioned kind that was company provided apart from a 401K. The monthly benefits would be less than $100 if I waited until retirement age to draw it. But I could take a lump sum rollover and then have access to the money. It wouldn't be much, especially after paying taxes and early withdrawal penalty, but it would be enough. It would be enough to buy us a place to live in that didn't have a lease or a mortgage. We weren't sure how it would work out, but we knew that it was a better option than moving in with my 74 year old mother-in-law or with our son and his wife. Our younger daughter and her fiance were okay with us living on their property with them, but not in a mobile home. So the decision was made to look into purchasing a used RV.

Some might wonder how did God provide the money for this purchase? After all it had been there for over five years, it wasn't like it was money from heaven. But I didn't know it was there and I didn't learn about it's existence until the right time, until God was ready for me to know about it. If I had learned about it a year or so ago, it would have been combined with another small rollover into an annuity account which is essentially locked for ten years. If I had learned about it just 5 or 6 months ago, we would have liquidated the account and given the money to the wrong person for the wrong reasons. Instead, I learned about the money approximately two weeks after learning a few other truths, such as living with my mother-in-law would be impossible and that we had to stop enabling our older daughter.

God is both efficient and economical in His providence. We learned these truths within a few days of each other as the indirect results of a trip to visit Ace's family in Oklahoma. Who knows, maybe they were the reason for the trip in the first place. I have been urging Ace for several weeks that we needed to make the trip, which he did not want to do. I told him that I felt the Lord had placed a burden in my heart that we were supposed to make the trip, but I didn't know why. Another "indirect" result of the trip was a increased willingness to let go of staying here and move to wherever a job might be. God was preparing us for the next part of His plan for us.

I did mention that it was just enough money to be able to buy the RV and take care of the remaining expenses for the transition?

I invite you, gentle readers, to come with me as we make this curve in the road. So much is now just unfolding and we have no idea what our future will look like in 2010 and beyond. There will be some occasions of looking back down the road already traveled, but mostly this is to be record of what lies ahead. This may be our journey, but it is our journey with our Lord Jesus and it is His itinerary, schedule and plan. As I said, His providence is economical and He reveals to us only what we need to know and only when we need to know it.

The one thing we did learn this week is that for His reasons, the Lord wants us to have the ability to be mobile, although I haven't a clue as to why. In a 5th wheel it's quite easy to "bug out". Taking a page from popular culture we decided to name our unit, where the M stands for mobile. We are the M*A*P*Z* unit, the Mobile Anglican Prayer Zone. I'm taking suggestions as to what we could name the 5th wheel...and no, she's much too nice to be called "The Swamp".

66 days and counting....